


Get Pen, Grab Pew

by MiotaLee



Category: Black Mirror (TV), Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-19 16:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiotaLee/pseuds/MiotaLee
Summary: Colin's point of view.Colin goes through the second half of 1984 multiple times, hoping that the time left behind him will stay there, permanently.This story has slight angst and romance elements.





	1. Genesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colins pov of 9th of July - 17th of September  
> The first time around Colin hadn’t read Bandersnatch
> 
> This wasn't originally supposed to be a chapter. It's more of a preface, really. Maybe sat some point in the distant future I'll edit this chapter so that it fits into the rest of the story narratively speaking.

Colin had meeting with Thakur and a 'Stefan Butler' one day. Stefan was making a game, Bandersnatch, based on the book with the same title. Colin had owned the book for a while, but never got around to reading it. Stefan's game had lit a spark of interest within him and he felt compelled to read the book.

After he’d come home that day he had gone directly to his bookshelf and found the book. He immediately became indrenched in its deep and complex narrative.

He sometimes even read the book at work over the two months it took for him to go through the entire thing. No-one seemed to mind since he was almost done with Nohzdyve by now, so he had much time to spare. Colin didn’t stop reading until he had read through the book multiple times, discovering all the paths each telling their own unique story while simultaneously being within a shared universe. This Jerome F. Davies fella was basically a genius, although, he turned out to be more mad than genius. Davies had basically come up with the same conspiracy theories that Colin had. Maybe because they were both taking “controlled substances”, to quote the narrator from the JFD documentary.

Colin thought about the first conspiracy theory that he’s come up with. It was the first time he got stoned while playing Pac-Man. His daler friend had talked about “The Man” and Colin’s flew into a long rant about how P.A.C. was an acronym for Program and Control-Man. 

If these were the sort of ideas that were going around in Jerome F. Davies's mind, then maybe Colin was crazy too? But the book had turned out amazing as a result? Maybe Stefan needed to see the same documentary that Colin had seen? He remembered that he was taping it for some reason, probably because he had been taking care of Pearl that day and was afraid to miss anything.

Colin was sitting there in his sofa with the book in his hand when he had the thought. He had looked at the videotape, which was on a table right across the room from him. The letters JFD were staring back at him.

Colin decided to bring the tape with him to the office the next morning hoping he could eventually come in contact with Stefan and give it to him. He asked Thakur’s assistant to look for Stefan’s address. 

The 12th of September arrived and Stefan had stumbled into the office, showing what seemed like a finished game. Colin was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t managed to give him the documentary before he finished the game.  
But just then the computer beeped and judging by Thakur’s reaction the game had crashed. 

Hm. Colin thought, maybe he had a chance to inspire Stefan after all?

Thakur gave him the weekend to finish the new path he had added.

Colin handed the cassette to Stefan after the meeting, feeling a sense of accomplishment. He’s been thoroughly inspired by the book, and he believed that the game would turn out fantastic too, if Stefan could just see the hidden silver lining in a brief deep dive into madness and conspiracy theories.

*

It was the 17th of September and Colin once again found himself waiting for Stefan to arrive to the new deadline meeting. When he didn’t, Thakur had called Stefan and then promptly sent Colin over to give Stefan a hand with the game. 

There was a closed door in front of Colin, he was waiting for the person behind it to open it up and let him in. He rang the doorbell once hoping that Stefan would open the door rather quickly. He knew that someone was home since the car was in the driveway, that and the fact that Thakur had called and talked to Stefan right before Colin had left. 

His patience was growing thin, he knocked once, then he rang the doorbell again. Still no one came. Screw it, he thought and tried the door handle. It was unlocked so he let himself in. Colin could hear movements from the kitchen, he took a careful step over the threshold, poking his head around the corner. The sight in front of him made him mentally recoil. 

Stefan stood bent over his father’s body, knife in hand and a strange blank expression on his face. There was blood everywhere. At first Colin’s mind didn’t want anything to do with the scene that was splayed in front of him. He had the urge to back up, close the door behind him and just run. But before had the chance to react, however, his mind had somehow come to the conclusion that the situation was still soluble.

He then realized that he had stood still, frozen, just staring at Stefan. Only the whites of his eyes were visible behind a morbid mask of blood and tangled hair.

Without saying anything Stefan lunged towards Colin. He plunged the knife right into Colin’s heart and he could feel every inch of the blade pushing aside tissue, veins and nerves. Nerves that started firing ferociously. He could feel the blood gushing from his wound, adding more blood to Stefan’s already drenched hands. The pain was unlike any pain Colin had ever felt before, yet all he could think was “this is a shit way of dying”. He reached out to staggeringly grasp the wrist of the knife-wielder before his vision went black as his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he could feel himself collapse.

Within the dreams of this memory, he could still feel his body twitch as he lost his consciousness. He could feel repeated stabs to his chest but at that point the pain was so over-encompassing that they just felt like tiny pinches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene above is one that was deleted from the final show.  
> Producers and actors talking about it:  
> https://youtu.be/72JSgDuLrCo?t=139  
> https://youtu.be/72JSgDuLrCo?t=170  
> Here's a link to an interview with Fionn Whitehead about it:  
> https://www.gamesradar.com/black-mirror-bandersnatch-star-reveals-the-one-choice-hes-annoyed-didnt-make-the-final-cut/
> 
> I've done some research, safe to say. xD


	2. Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin meets Stefan for the first time, or is it?

Colin awoke, his eyes wide-opened, pupils narrowed. He had died? No- it was just a dream. Stefan hadn’t just stabbed him in the chest. Wait, who was Stefan? He slapped himself across his face, letting the hand rest there for a while before reaching for his glasses, putting them on and climbing out of bed.

“Colin? You awake?” he could hear Kitty calling from the kitchen. Her concern about him had been endearing when he’d first met her, but after living with it for over a year it had become like a thorn in his side. If it wasn’t for Pearl, he would have kicked Kitty out ages ago. He still loved her, but he wasn’t in love anymore. That feeling had gone away relatively quickly. Colin had always considered himself a lone wolf, so he must have been high out of his mind when he decided that not having the abortion was the right thing to do. Maybe he’d thought that it would have been his only chance to pass down his genes, to keep his legacy going. He painstakingly put on his clothes and staggered into the kitchen.

“I’m going to my mum and dad’s later, I’m gonna bring Pearl. That alright with you?” she asked, gently wagging Perl in her arms. Of course he had no say in it. Neither of them liked to leave Pearl with a babysitter, and since Kitty didn’t really have a job she had quickly gown comfortable as a stay-at-home mom. And Colin, who still had to work, couldn’t as readily be there for Pearl like Kitty could.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Colin said reaching his finger forward so that Pearl could grasp it with her surprisingly strong grip. He didn’t regret becoming a father, but he missed being on his own. It was a dead giveaway to how little he liked being in a traditional family when he looked forward to being at work so that he could ignore the rest of the world. At least the people at the office respected his privacy.

“You know, I’m not stupid Colin,” Kitty said in a hushed voice. Colin looked up at her, his brows furrowed. “I can tell that you don’t want me around. Maybe it’s best if I stayed at my parent’s?” Colin felt a strange sense of Déjà vu.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Colin could remember his dream. It hadn’t been a dream though, it was something else. The strange sense of Déjà vu he was getting from everything that he did, from everything Kitty said... He felt like he knew what she was going to say.

“I’m sorry,” he then said. Just because this felt like it had already happened before, didn’t mean that he wouldn’t attempt to get it right this time. This was probably a chance to redeem himself. He remembered that there had been an argument. 

He hadn’t been distant on purpose, it was more that he finally stopped caring about pandering to other people and putting their happiness before his own. “I still want to be there for her though,” he said, nodding at Pearl who giggled and some bubbles of drool crept out of her mouth.

“Of course,” Kitty exhaled heavily. “It’s all my fault anyway. I roped you into this, even though I knew… or felt… that you’d eventually leave me.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, I guess some part of me always wanted to be a father, and I’m still happy that you were the one that made that happen. Pearl couldn’t wish for a better, more caring mother.”

“Thank you, Colin. You’re too sweet,” she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek. “You come and visit us anytime you feel ready, and we can go over custody, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Colin shot a look at his calendar before heading off to work. It was the 9th of July and there was a note that said “Game demo meeting with Thakur and Butler”, there was no time noted, but that name felt familiar somehow.

At the office he was listening to Depeche Mode while working on Nohzdyve. It was the second week in the new office since the move. Colin had usually worked from home, but now that Tuckersoft was expanding he had another chance to get away from his family. At least his co-workers knew that when his headphones were on no-one was allowed to bother him. Well, Thakur, still bothered him regularly but he payed Colin well, so he put up with it.

Colin could respect Mohan Thakur better now than when he had first gotten to know him. He could see that he was a visionary in his own right, but he was always a businessman first, a publisher second and somewhere, low down on the list, he also dabbled with computers and games. Their interests didn’t align perfectly, but their passion in its raw form was the same. It had taken some time to come to this conclusion, and maybe now he could finally respect Thakur for what he was, bad jokes and all.

Just as he had that thought, Thakur came to once again bother him. “What’s this, Kajagoogoo?” he’d said, pulling off the headphones from Colin’s ears, laughing at his own joke.

“You wish,” Colin said, trying to mask his irritation. Thakur had brought someone over. Colin put the cigarette he was holding to his lips.

“The state of him, he’s made enough this year to buy a Lamborghini and he still smokes roll-ups,” Thakur said, getting uncomfortably close to his face. Was this some sort of weird powerplay?

Colin flicked his lighter and lighting the cigarette he looked at Stefan while taking a deep breath. Stefan? He recognized him. It was Stefan from that dream. He exhaled a puff of smoke in disbelief asking: “We’ve met before?” Now one hundred percent sure that his dream hadn’t been just a dream.

“No,” Stefan simply answered. He looked more perplexed than Colin felt. Colin turned his head to the computer. This was all too familiar. He had been working on Nohzdyve when this happened before, and the Stefan had said something about the Commodore?

“This is what I’m working on-” Colin thought he’d show off the game before Stefan could awkwardly ramble, but Stefan cut him off just as he was about to introduce the title.

“Nohzdyve,” Stefan said, leaning forward.

“Yeah… That’s right,” Colin said slowly, tilting his face towards Stefan, but still looking at the screen, squinting to himself. He hadn’t even opened the game yet. He nevertheless pressed the “run” button to show how the game played. He had almost captured five eyeballs when the game froze up. 

“Oh, Bollocks,” he said to himself.

“What’s that?” Thakur asked, looking at Colin’s second screen where the script for the game was displayed. Colin was just about to check on the script when Stefan answered Thakur’s question.

“Buffer error,” he simply said, looking at the screen. When he was only met with silence and Colin’s confused expression, Stefan straightened up and added “The eyeball-sprites overshot the video memory.”

“How did you know that?” Colin hadn’t have time to look up the error himself yet. Stefan had said it so confidently, it seemed strange. Did he also have the same experience as Colin had? He could feel a conspiracy theory brewing. What if these flashbacks were an invitation to jump back in time and say something different? Colin barely heard what Stefan answered. 

“Anyway, let’s get down to business, Stefan has got something to demo for us,” Thakur’s voice brought him back to reality. Colin looked at Stefan with a sort ow newly awoken feeling coming over him. Were they both somehow able to travel back moments in time?

*

Colin sat mostly silent while Stefan and Thakur went over the game as he observed and absorbed every detail that he could. This was exactly what he had experienced before. Every detail of the demo exactly the same. During the meeting more memories had come flooding back to him. Stefan had just approached Pax in the game.

“Don’t worship him,” he heard himself say. Thakur looked at Colin. Of course Thakur didn’t know this since he probably hadn’t read the book. “He’s the thief of destiny,” he clarified.

“You’ve read Bandersnatch?” Stefan looked him with a confused expression on his face.

“Jerome F. Davies. Visionary,” Colin stated somewhat reminiscently. It had been a darn good book.

“Isn’t he that bloke who went cuckoo and cut his wife’s head off? Thakur said, looking at Colin.

“That is what people tend to focus on, yes,” he said, and shrugged. Davies had been messed up, for sure, but he was still a genius.

“Which ending did you get?” Stefan asked Colin. “When you read it.” he added, as if Colin didn’t know that he meant the book not the game.

“All of them,” Colin answered truthfully. He had read that book upside-down. Well, the other version of him had done it, but Colin still remembered that. So he never read the book in this timeline, but he still did it in another one and he could recall that. This ability would have been amazing to have in school, Colin thought to himself.

Stefan just looked at him, eyebrows slightly furrowed. 

*

Stefan declined the offer to work at the office which intrigued Colin. Thakur looked disappointed and Stefan himself had seemed surprised when he said no instead of yes. He’d made a bumbling excuse as to why he preferred to work at home, something about it being too “stressy” to work at the office. 

“But I know that I can do it proper justice, the book,” Stefan said. 

No, you mean the game. Colin thought to himself. He’d given the documentary to Stefan the last time but maybe it had been too late. He needed to somehow inspire him to dive deeper, earlier. 

“I get it,” Colin said to himself. Bandersnatch hadn’t been done by the deadline last time. After Colin had realized that he had now gained an audience, he added: “The lad’s a craftsman,” Colin looked at Stefan. He needed to convince him right now that the game would be fantastic. Remembering that Stefan was his fan, maybe comparing himself to Stefan would work as a compliment? Well, they were sort of similar, in that they both preferred to work alone. “He’s a lone woodsman. I’m the same.” he said, getting up from the table.

Thakur tried protest. He probably wanted more control over the game.

“It’s like I say, teams are fine for things like action titles, but when it’s a concept piece, bit of madness is what you need and that works best when it’s one mind,” Colin tried his best to give a hint to Stefan while still seeming inconspicuous. He couldn’t just blurt out that he thought that he and Stefan were time travelers right in front of Thakur. He just hoped that Stefan would pick up on the hint and somehow signal back.

Stefan didn’t seem to get it and he still agreed to deliver the game by same deadline as before, the 12 of September. Colin had reminded himself to make a note in his calendar at home.

*

The day of the deadline for Bandersnatch arrived. At the office Nohzdyve was put into boxes, ready to be shipped. Despite the fact that Thakur was lashing everybody’s backs with a metaphorical whip, everything felt still. Maybe it was Colin’s state of mind that made every scene before him pass as through slow-motion, or maybe it was the fact that no-one bothered him because of his headphones?

Colin had lit a cigarette and was now inhaling the smoke deeply. He spun his chair around so he could face the entrance to the office. He exhaled the smoke and put the cigarette in between his lips to free his hands in order to hold them up in front of his face. They felt... tingly. Looking at them closely, he could notice a slight jittering. He closed his hands into fists, knuckles turning white as he tried to dampen the feeling. Colin didn’t like getting nervous.

The clock was 13:00, Stefan was supposed to be there by now. Colin really wished he would show up. His eyes darted between the clock and the door, his heart sinking more and more with each passing second.  
Then, just as he was about to give up, there he was in his worn, brown leather jacket and his satchel hanging by his side, looking like a frightened deer. Colin exhaled a puff of smoke, his entire body relaxing its previously tense muscles. He put out his cigarette and jumped up to join Stefan and Thakur at the meeting.

Once more he had been silently observing Stefan and Thakur as they went over the game. Colin was some what preoccupied with his own thoughts. 

“Stefan, mate. This is due today. You said it was stable!” Thakur’s exasperated voice interrupted Colin’s thoughts when the screen turned to a mess of jumbled blocks and the sound chip protested loudly. Shit, the game still wasn’t finished. Something had to be different, something had to change. He really didn’t want to get stabbed again if he could avoid it.

“I thought it was, I just-” Stefan started to fumble.

“Did you add a new path?” Colin asked, knowing the answer.

“The government conspiracy branch,” he said dejectedly, throwing down the joystick on the table and twisting his hands nervously.

“One of the alternate timelines in the novel,” Colin said more to the room than actually trying to explain it to Thakur.

“If it’s something you’ve added, let’s just take it out,” Thakur tried to rationalize. 

“No, it’s important,” Stefan protested. “I just need the weekend, I know I can add this path in,” Stefan pleaded. If there was anything Colin had gathered about Stefan, it was that he wouldn’t give up until the game was flawless. The weekend, Stefan had said. Something must have happened during the weekend that lead to Stefan ending up murdering his father.

A thought crossed Colin’s mind: there answer had to be that the completion of this game was somehow important.

“I’ll help you,” he could hear himself say. The words only surprised him for less than a second, but then he found it obvious. To help Stefan before the weekend was something he hadn’t tried yet.

Stefan’s face brightened up and he looked expectantly at Thakur, who sighed heavily.

“First thing Monday. Just don’t fuck up, there’s a lot riding on this now,” he said exiting the room, excusing himself as he went to another meeting, leaving Stefan and Colin alone in the room.

“You sure you aren’t busy?” Stefan asked to lift the silence.

“Yeah. Nohzdyve is ready for the shelves so I’m all freed up,” he said, hands in his pocket. He looked at the Jerome F. Davies documentary on the table in front of him. He had decided it was probably not a good idea to give it to Stefan. He had told him that he needed a little bit of madness to make his game perfect and Stefan had taken that statement and ran amok with it - all the way to fucking crazy town. Colin had no particular interest in being a hero, going around saving lives, but he was pretty sure that letting Stefan kill his own father was a bad idea. Besides, getting stabbed himself was definitely not the way things were supposed to end after all. Right?

“Want to continue the game here, or… do you still prefer to work at home?” Colin asked carefully, trying to gauge Stefan’s reaction.

“Well, I have all my notes at home…” Stefan said quietly looking up at Colin, like he was afraid of bothering him.

“To your place we go, then,” he said but felt a little bit uncertain if he really wanted to be there (on account of the whole murder ordeal).

The weekend came and went relatively without a hitch though. They finished the game together and even optimized it a little bit. Stefan had offered to credit Colin as a game developer, but he declined the gesture. He knew this game meant a great deal to Stefan and having it be a “Colin Ritman game” would probably ruin his experience of his own first published game. Having Colin’s name on the title would also bring a lot higher expectations to it. Not that he thought the game would fail, but since he theorized that a successful completion of the game was important, he didn’t want to risk it.

Over the weekend a few other things had become clearer to Colin, or at least some suspicions and theories had started brewing in his brain. He’d gotten to know Stefan’s father, Peter, over the past 5 days and he always seemed to loom around them. Whenever he wasn’t at work he always seemed to keep an eye on Colin and Stefan and his presence felt… Oppressive. This would probably explain why Stefan always seemed so nervous, like someone was constantly judging his every move. Because someone was. 

This particular train of thought made Colin’s heart sink a little bit, since he was also guilty about monitoring Stefan’s movies. But to his excuse, he had monitored basically everyone he’d come in contact with lately, and he had learned how to manipulate some of them in a manner that made him feel most comfortable. He didn’t think it was wrong, since he wasn’t really using his newfound power in a negative way. He was using it to help a newbie with his first game. Things were changing now, he had started experiencing a new timeline and things were once again blissfully unpredictable. Colin smirked to himself, he had made the biggest discovery since the world had re-set for him, and it was Stefan himself.

It was close to Christmas and Stefan had invited him over so that they could watch the review together. It had been a nice sentiment, a breath of fresh air and maybe it was another sign that Stefan was finally developing confidence within himself. Colin felt a surge of hope that things were going to be great from here on out. He hoped hat this had been his one-time-try to for him to make things turn out better, for all of them. He’d brought champagne with him, preparing to celebrate a good score, but he kept it concealed just in case there wasn’t a cause for celebration.

They sat down in the sofa, all three of them, eagerly watching Micro Play on the Telly before them.

“So, Bandersnatch,” the hostess, Leslie, said, turning herself and the camera to her much younger co-host, Robin. “What’s the final verdict?”

“Four stars out of five. It’s almost perfect, it just feels like there are too many endings and none of them are 100% satisfactory. But! The experience of playing Bandersnatch is it in itself; beyond great.” *

Peter and Colin turned their heads to Stefan who was sitting between them. Stefan was smiling a soft smile.

“Ask me what I want to change about this moment,” he said evidently trying to restrain himself from shouting and cheering.

“What do you want to change?” Colin asked, thinking that 4 out of 5 was really good.

“Nothing…” Stefan answered. Colin exhaled a relieved chuckle. 

“Congratulations!” he said, turning around to retrieve the bottle from his bag, he held it up and smiled widely. “Let’s fucking celebrate!”

*

Colin had only known Stefan for about 6 months but only in 4 of which, he had spent a lot of time with Stefan. It had been a great 4 months and he had made a friend in Stefan, unlikely as it had seemed the first time around. Colin couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this genuinely happy. He had almost forgotten that 6 months ago he had awoken from a surreal nightmare where Stefan had murdered him. He knew that this was the version of world he wanted to leave behind for good. 

Colin smiled behind his hand. He and Stefan were on the rooftop of his apartment building. There was a party going on behind them but they had come there separated from its crowd. There was a couple of other other tenants there as well, waiting eagerly for the midnight hour, drinking their champagne and joking jovially. Colin’s was hopeful for the future. He observed Stefan who was leaning over the edge, beer bottle in his hand, the moon shining bright above him.

“...and then I fucking said to him ‘piss off, you miserable wanker’ and he just stood there, staring at me,” Stefan was laughing and smiling as he told some anecdote about his time in school. It was since to see him act confidently for once. Colin believed the good review of his game might have had something to do with his drastic improvement.

“Good for you, mate,” he said, giving Stefan’s arm a squeeze. “Look, it’s almost midnight, wanna toast?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stefan replied. 

Colin popped a bottle open and poured two glasses, giving a nod to the other people partying on the rooftop. He handed one glass to Stefan and took one for himself. 

“Under half a minute left,” Stefan said expectantly. Fireworks started to go off around them. Colin swallowed his anticipation.

“Hey, they’re cheating!” Stefan said looking at the clock on his wrist. “There’s 15 seconds left!” he smiled widely “Twelve!” she shouted.

“10… 9… 8…” Colin could hear the people around him starting to count. Stefan joined them, and Colin joined Stefan, smiling equally widely. “4… 3…”

Just then Colin could feel his knees bending strangely underneath him, he could no longer support his own weight. He went from looking at Stefan’s face, to his chest and now his feet? Someone was screaming as his vision turned black.


	3. The Dream Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin's point of view from events of the show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty much just a re-telling of events from the show, so it's kinda filler-y. Sorry.

Colin awoke, his eyes wide-opened, pupils narrowed. He looked around his room and practically jumped out of his bed. “No... no, no, no!” he said out loud as he rushed to the window and pulled the curtains away. “Fuck,” he sighed as he saw the sun shine brightly over a blue sky and green trees. It was definitely not the first of January. Colin fell backwards onto the bed again. He wanted to weep. He had actually allowed himself to feel happy...

“Everything ok in here?” Kitty poked her head into the bedroom, brows furrowed.

“I’m fine, Kit,“ Colin tried to brush her off. “Just a really, really bad dream…”

*

Colin shot a look at his calendar before heading off to work. It was the 12th of September, Kitty confirmed the date. It was the original deadline for Bandersnatch. He’d somehow made progress? Why had he woken up here? Was there something that needed to change on this date?

“I think I need to call in sick,” Colin simply said. He decided to see if something would change on its own. He’d spent so much time working on Bandersnatch last time, Colin didn’t feel like doing that all over again. He hoped that Stefan remembered the previous time-loop, just like he did. Maybe Stefan could finish the game alone this time, now that he knew how to get a near perfect review. Maybe Stefan needed to explore some of his potential timelines before the loop would stop for the both of them?

*

At the 17th Colin once again found himself sitting in Thakur’s office, reading a magazine to pass the time before the meeting with Stefan. Thakur was getting increasingly more impatient as time went on. 

“Where is he?” he sort of shouted to the room. Colin didn't’ answer, but glanced up t Thakur. “Fuck this, I’m calling him,” he said picking up the phone.

There was a few beats before Stefan picked up. Colin couldn’t tell what Stefan had said to Thakur, but Thakur threw down the telephone after only a few seconds and turned around. He looked furious.

“You shouldn’t rush him,” Colin simply said. “He needs to explore all possibilities,” he was looking down at the magazine, not really reading it but more so avoiding looking at Thakur.

“He said that he’d delivering to end of the day,” Thakur said to the ceiling.

“So, that’s good then.” Colin said, it wasn’t a question. He was wanted to keep Thakur calm.

“He’s bullshitting,” he said. Colin glanced up at Thakur. “Why don’t you head round there. See what’s really going on. Give him a hand,” Thakur was waving at him, impatiently ushering him to move. “Come on. And get your feet off my table!”

Had he once thought that he respected Thakur?

_Well, time to get stabbed again_

Colin thought to himself as he reluctantly got up from the sofa. 

*

There was a closed door in front of Colin. It was a familiar door that he had stared at before. He rang the doorbell and as before Stefan took his sweet time getting back to him. Stefan was probably in full progress of killing his father. 

Stefan opened the door with his ever present bewildered expression, which somehow was more distraught than before. 

“Well, you need a hand,“ Colin flatly stated. Had his advice of needing a bit of madness always lead Stefan to insanity? He hoped that Stefan would have had time to learn anything from his earlier advice. Colin decidedly didn’t care if Stefan had killed his dad or not, but hopefully he could direct Stefan back to sanity long enough to finish the game. “Come on, led me it,” Colin said after a brief pause. 

“To what?” Stefan looked at him as if he had been caught lying. 

“Bandersnatch,” Colin clarified raising his already arched eyebrows. “Where is your pit?” He said looking around. “Up there?” He pointed at the ceiling.

Colin started going up the stairs, Stefan scuttering after him. He found his way into Stefan's room. There was a huge collage on the wall above and behind his computer. 

“Fucking hell,” Colin said and sighed heavily while looking at the sketches. “You've gone right down the hole, mate” he said turning around. “Well down it,” Stefan was still holding the same knife from before. Well, he had made some progress. Colin thought to himself. At least this time he had gotten inside the house. And this time he was more prepared for the eventuality of his own death.

“I killed my dad,” Stefan just said quietly, softly. He looked absolutely lost and hollow.

“Right,” just as Colin had thought. He paused before coming to the conclusion that he had already died here before so maybe he wasn’t supposed to die right now either. “So, how do you wanna go about this?” he said, accepting his fate but hoping that by now Stefan was aware enough to make the odds of him not dying at this point, better next time around. He didn't want to die but he was certain that Stefan was supposed to finish Bandersnatch. Maybe Colin had to die for that to happen? No, they had pretty much succeeded last time around when Colin had helped Stefan with the game.

He wasn’t sure if he would die for real right now, but he was still holding on to the dram of everyday beginning where the last one ended. He had allowed himself to dare to dream.

“So are you gonna kill me or are you going to let me go? I mean it’s your choice, in as much as you have a choice,” Colin thought about Bandersnatch. In order to get the ending you wanted you needed to know all the choices you had to make. And knowing all the choices before you would lead to the illusion of the choice itself to falter.

“I’m sorry,” Stefan said and took a step forward, slowly raising the knife.

“Alright. No point arguing about it,” Colin said, feeling slightly alarmed as he looked at the blade. Colin's heart ached when he remembered what getting stabbed actually felt like. He removed his hand from his pocket just to point at the knife. “Not with that, though. They sting,” he could almost feel the intense pain again. He looked around the room. 

“You got anything blunt, y'know, to stun me first?” he asked as he turned around to look at the table behind him. There was some sort of award or statue under the mountains of paper. Colin picked it up to feel its weight in his hands. “Bit more humane,” at least he hoped it would be.

He handed the statue to Stefan who dropped the knife on the floor and took it. “See you in the next life, yeah?” Colin mused, hoping that he’d actually see him again. Hoping that he’d wake up, safe and sound in his bed. He bent over and closed his eyes. He could feel Stefan’s hand on his shoulder. Colin looked up at Stefan who seemed to be hesitating.

“Come on, on me head,” he said as he braced for impact. 

All he heard was the sound of his own skull, cracking.


	4. It's a Trip!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains the infamous acid scene.

Colin awoke, his eyes wide-opened, pupils narrowed. He lived, once again. Well then, he thought. He didn’t have to die. 

“Everything ok in here?” Kitty poked her head into the bedroom, brows furrowed.

“No, I’m deep in the hole this time, Kit,” he said. Bracing himself to go through the motions one more time.

Maybe he should stay at home from work today? He didn’t know how else to aid Stefan with Bandersnatch other than trying to inspire him. Maybe he should kill Stefan and finish the game himself? No, that was stupid. He picked up the phone and called in sick.

Kitty had left for her parent’s place again and she’d brought Pearl with her. It was probably for the best, Colin felt unreasonably unstable. He rummaged around the equipment in his den, looking for the box he kept his acid in. Finding it he shakily popped a tab in his mouth. He held his head back, closing his eyes tightly. 

He thought to himself that he’d wasted time doing everything perfectly, making damn sure that it was really the world he wanted to leave behind. How come two less people had died and it was still not a good enough world? He’d assumed that he had to make the right decisions or the world would fling him back in time again. So what could he have done wrong? What else wasn't he doing right?

He went in to the bathroom, looking for... something. He couldn’t even remember. Was he going to brush his teeth? He could feel his tongue fill his mouth, it felt strangely raw behind his teeth. He looked into the mirror, regarding his own reflection. His pupils were enlarged, irises almost black. Colin found himself reaching out to touch his reflection, but instead of the mirror breaking his momentum forward, his hand went through it. 

Just another damn cosmic mystery to solve, he thought to himself. 

He tried to push his other hand through the mirror and there was a strange lack of sensation of resistance as he pushed his head through, then his entire body.

*

Colin found himself in a dark room, multiple doors surrounded him, all of them opened.   
All of them were showing various different locations within the door frame as if there was a unique film playing behind each door.

He walked up the the one right across from him. He recognized the sight before him; he was looking directly into his own memory. There he was, his 10th birthday, opening presents. Colin chuckled to himself. He moved on to the next door, and then the next. Each memory evoking a different emotion, some were monumental occasions from his life, some were tiny insignificant memories. Each memory was looping around itself after a certain amount of time.   
Then he came to a memory that lasted for less than a second. It was a memory of seeing Stefan in the city. It seemed to flicker in the blink of an eye. Stefan was standing there in front of a small office building, his dad facing him.   
Colin could remember this because the look Stefan had given him, when their eyes had met that brief second. Even if the memory had lasted just a second or less, the look he had given hims was jaded and terrified, reaching out for help. 

The memory in the doorway kept repeating itself so quickly it sort of felt like it beckoned to him. Colin shook his head. 

“What does this mean?” he said out loud, hoping that someone would answer. 

After not getting a reply he simply did what his instinct had told him and he went through the door frame and suddenly he was back in the very same moment that he had observed.

“Colin!” he could hear a voice behind him. Colin noticed that he had a cigarette in his mouth, he took out into his hand and turned around. Stefan had abandoned his father by his car and was now standing there, right by him. 

“Hi,” Stefan said, timidly.

Colin didn’t know what to answer. This, he was certain, was a memory slightly after he re-started the first time, and in the past from where he had just come from. He didn’t remember which date it was though.   
He couldn’t ask Stefan what day it was, that would make him seem crazy, so he used the only measurement of time and progress that he could think of. He exhaled the smoke from his cigarette before asking:

“How’s Bandersnatch going?”

“Not good,” Stefan said shaking his head, his eyes faltering a little bit. “Not good. I’m just… lost.”

He should have known. Stefan was just as lost as Colin himself was. He was probably not even aware of everything starting over, yet. 

But the mirror had beckoned him to come back to this moment for a reason? Maybe he had to guide Stefan to consciousness about the loop before Colin himself could be free? Maybe Stefan had to go through the loop a few times on his own, in order to become aware?

He sighed. “You’re in the hole,” he found himself relating to Stefan. Turning around, he started walking again, taking another drag from the cigarette.

*

Kitty was home at this point and time and Colin felt that it was only right to introduce them. He knew that he’d been cold to her for a while by now. She was almost reluctant to let him hold Pearl when he turned around to introduce Stefan to his family.  
.   
“Stefan this is Kitty,” he said, nodding back to Kitty as he looked down at Pearl. “And this is Pearl,” she would be the first and the last. “Daddy's little legacy.”

Then Colin raised his head and looked at Stefan, who had looked awkward and shy ever since he stepped through the door. He regarded him for a moment, wondering just why Stefan looked so shy. Colin felt a strong connection to Stefan, sure, but there was no doubt in his mind that Stefan already regarded Colin with the same importance as Colin did for him.  
Only, for Colin this had been a recent revelation and Stefan had probably felt this way about Colin for a long while. But he wasn’t aware? His new theories started to crash in his mind.

*

Colin had handed Pearl back to Kitty, asking her if he hand Stefan could hang out alone. He knew Kitty didn’t mind drugs, but he didn’t want Pearl to be around when he was smoking. Kitty understood and prepared to leave without any fuss. Colin had made tea in the kitchen before moving on to the living room relatively quickly. He instinctively grabbed the box with the acid tabs and put it down on the table. He sat down and took a sip of his tea before puting the cup on a coaster. Stefan remained standing upright.

"Grab a pew" Colin said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a joint as he prepared to preach. It was meant as a joke, but he found himself saying it seriously. Stefan obeyed however, and he took off his jacket and sat down.   
Colin lit the joint, taking a drag from it and then handing it over to Stefan who tried to make an excuse about his inexperience with drugs but took it nonetheless. Colin then picked up the acid box while Stefan inhaled a trying breath and exhaled the smoke slowly. He coughed.

"You'll get the hang of that," Colin smirked, hopefully though, he would only need to do this once. He reached two fingers into the box. The acid might be easier to hold down, Colin thought. There was a tiny paper tab resting on each of his two fingertips when he retrieved them from the box. They had the image of a lion printed on them. He held his finger out for Stefan, who was still coughing.

"One for you... one for me,” he said, expectantly.

“What is it?” Stefan said, looking kinda frightened. 

Jesus, this kid was green. Colin purposely omitted “Acid” and “LSD” from his explanation. “It lets you see the bigger picture," he instead said. “Do you want it? It’s up to you,” Colin tried to reassure him. 

"No, I’m alright, Thanks though," he said, leaning back and breaking eye contact.

“Just thought I’d give you the choice,” he said, pursing his lips. He wasn’t disappointed, he knew that the choice was an illusion. He’d just put a tab in Stefan’s tea.   
Colin opened his mouth, reaching out his tongue, he then popped one of the tabs on there and clenched his lips tightly. Stefan looked almost ashamed, he was averting his eyes, unable to meet Colin's gaze directly. Colin took the opportunity while Stefan was looking away to put the other tab in Stefan’s cup.

"Don't forget your tea," he said as he put the cup closer to Stefan as he was walking over behind the sofa.

“Cheers,” Stefan said and took a quick gulp just to follow orders. 

Colin went over to the record player and took out Tangerine Dream, put it in, and hit play. Afterwards he returned to his seat, as ‘Love On A Real Train' rolled out from the speakers.

Stefan was drinking his tea when all of a sudden a strange smile came over his face. His apparent guilt and timidness from just seconds ago were gone.

"What have you done?" he asked, smiling widely and giggled.

"I chose for you. Are you ok with that?”

"Yeah" Stefan said, smiling. Then he started laughing and Colin joined him jovially. 

*

Stefan was walking around the room, touching various things and looking closely at one of Colin’s posters when Colin finally figured out what to say to Stefan.

“People think there's only one reality but there's loads of them, all snaking off, like roots. And what we do on one path affects what happens on the other paths. When you make a decision, you think it's you doing it, but it's not. It's the spirit out there that's connected to our world that decides what we do and we just have to go along for the ride.”

Stefan just looked at him, eyes wide. He continued examining Colin’s things for a while before returning to sit down.

“Time is a construct,” he said more to himself than Stefan. “People think you can't go back and change things, but you can, that's what flashbacks are, they're invitations to go back and make different choices,” Colin joined Stefan on the sofa.

“Mirrors let you move through time,” He said as he felt himself starting to trail off… Stefan was looking at his hands as he turned them around in the air like a wizard...

“The government monitors people, they pay people to pretend to be your relatives and they put drugs in your food and they film you,” Colin felt himself losing touch with reality.

*  
“There's messages in every game. Like Pac-Man.Do you know what PAC stands for?” he excitedly started and rose up, telling Setfan about his first real theory. “P-A-C: Program and Control. He's Program and Control Man, the whole thing's a metaphor, he thinks he's got free will but really he's trapped in a maze, in a system, all he can do is consume, he's pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head, and even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze, what happens?” Colin paused, his breath catching up to him.  
“He comes right back in the other side,” he said dramatically. “People think it's a happy game, it's not a happy game, it's a fucking nightmare world and the worst thing is, it's real and we live in it,” Colin felt his own voice tremble. This was exactly the world they lived in, right now. Colin shook his head, trying to focus his mid on the task before him.

“There’s a cosmic flowchart that dictates where you can and can’t go,” Colin explained as he took off his glasses and grabbed Stefan’s face, pinning his gaze into Stefan’s eyes. He needed to tell Stefan everything. He felt- no, he knew, that if Stefan became aware of this hell-hole they were both stuck together in, they’d have a chance to break free.

“I’ve given you the knowledge, I’ve set you free,” he said excitedly. He was so close to Stefan’s eyes now. He’d never noticed how green they were before. “Do you understand?” he said jolting them back to reality.

“Maybe,” Stefan smiled, “Yes, sort of,” he giggled. Man he was totally out of it. Colin had to make sure that Stefan would remember this after he came down from his trip. Down. That gave him an idea.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Colin said and put on his glasses again. If it was true that he wasn’t supposed to die, he could just off himself right now and the world would reset. “Come with me,” he said, opening the balcony door behind him. He went over to the ledge. 

“We’re on one path. Right now, me and you. And how one path ends is immaterial. It’s how our decisions along that path affect the whole that matters,” he needed to hammer this information in. After that it would hopefully be as easy as hitting the reset button and Stefan would eventually become aware. Then he’d get his happy ever after. 

“Do you believe me?” he asked, anxious to see if Stefan could actually absorb this information. He had to believe him, or else he was screwed, doomed to go through this alone.

“I don’t know,” Stefan simply giggled again. 

“I’ll prove it. One of us is going over,” he said, pointing down from the balcony. “Over there.”

Stefan’s smile drained from his face. He looked over the edge, then back at Colin. “You’d die. You’d die.” he simply repeated.

“It wouldn’t matter because there are other timelines, Stefan,” Colin was pleading the information onto him now. Stefan had to retain this, he just had to, or else he’d go insane. He’d rather die once and for all than have to experience this nightmare forever. 

“One of us is jumping,” Colin said, wondering if his world would re-set too if Stefan died. If it didn’t he guessed that he’d jump after him. Stefan just seemed overwhelmed. “So come on, who’s it gonna be?” Colin was growing impatient despite knowing that he once again only offered an illusion of a choice. 

“You do it,” Stefan said, bewildered, after thinking for a moment. He said it almost like a challenge, like he didn’t believe that Colin would actually do it.

“Fair enough,” Colin simply replied and jumped on top of the ledge. After getting stabbed, things like jumping over the balcony felt like child's play. Even getting up on the ledge was easy. He just really hoped that Stefan would learn from this experience. 

“See you around,” he said and promptly swung his other leg over the edge, letting gravity do the rest. He barely even felt the impact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am 100% open for chapter name suggestions.


	5. The Nightmare Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, no summary for you. This chapter is pretty short so anything I say will be a spoiler. DW though, the next chapter is on it's way asap after posting this!

After once more waking up on the 12th of september, Colin again found himself in his office chair, waiting for Stefan to arrive. Maybe this time he’d be more aware of the repeating nature of the universe and hopefully he’d recall the previous timeline and not try to kill him in this one.

Colin waited… and waited. The clock was 13:30 now, and there was no sign of Stefan. What the fuck was going on? Thakur hadn’t even come to yell at him. Something was dreadfully off. He got up from his chair and went in to Thakur’s office.

“Where’s Stefan? I thought we had a deadline meeting today,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning his shoulder on the door-frame.

“Stefan…?” Thakur furrowed his brow, and shook his head. “Colin, Stefan is dead. Don’t you remember that?” Thakur looked genuinely worried about Colin’s state of mind. 

This was all new. It was too much.

“Dead?” No, he can’t be… Colin thought feverously. “How? When?”

“Two months ago,” Thakur said, shaking his head as if to jog his memory. “His father called us, said that he’d fallen asleep when he was with his therapist. Never woke up, just up and died on the spot.”

“That’s… Impossible?” Colin was confused.

“Yeah, the paramedics said that too. They said he was healthy, couldn’t determine the cause of death. If I was that Jerome F. Davies fella, I’d suspect that the therapist poisoned his tea or something,” Thakur’s transition from genuine reports of events to a joke was jarring. He was laughing that laugh once again. It seemed like he had very little pity for Stefan’s fate. 

Colin slapped his hand across his face. Of course, it all made sense now. Colin had gone through the mirror to his past wen he had offered Stefan the LSD, then he had jumped and died, so If he was dead in that timeline, Stefan couldn’t be alive right now, because he would have jumped in Colin’s stead.

Colin was certain that he needed Stefan’s help and Stefan couldn’t help him if he was dead, so he had to reset. 

Colin went over to the window in Thakur’s office and opened it. He looked down. Yeah, it’s far enough, he thought to himself and started climbing up.

“What the heck are you doing?” Thakur stood up from his chair. His expression unreadable.

“I’m starting over,” Colin simply replied and once again jumped to his death.

*

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. Stefan was just gone. No matter how many times he started over and no matter if he went back to the mirror and never offered Stefan the LSD; when he got back from the mirror and reset his world, Stefan was always dead… and he always died the same way; in the chair of his therapist’s office; “Just closing his eyes”.

After resetting a couple of times he realized that Stefan still turned out dead no matter how he tossed and turned the dice. Reluctantly, Colin thought that maybe this was the way it was supposed to be? Maybe he had to let Stefan be dead and gone? Maybe the universe wanted him dead? Maybe it would finally let him experience the turn of the year? Maybe Colin wasn’t supposed to help Stefan with Bandersnatch after all? Maybe it was naive to think that the universe surrounded the success of a game? *

*

The end of the year crept up. Every day that had passed Colin felt more and more guilty that he got to live and Stefan had to die. He had been so sure that Stefan was the key to his survival and he never once imagined that it was the death of him that was the ultimate factor. The guilt soon replaced every other emotion he had.

*

Kitty had invited him to her parent’s place for Christmas but Colin had declined. He wanted to see Pearl, but he couldn’t muster the energy to be social with anyone, much less have an entire evening of eating dinner, small talking and exchanging gifts. 

Instead he’d spent Christmas alone in his apartment, smoking weed and listening to Tangerine Dream. He couldn’t get the fucking feeling of sickness out of his heart. He’d laid on the sofa, legs over the backrest, eyes fixed on the ceiling. It was as if his ribs were shrinking and constraining his lunges and his heart. He couldn’t breathe. The anxiety was so deep it seemed like there wasn’t any escape from the hollowness in his heart.

*

That new year’s he decided that he was going out with a bang. He had scored some snow from his usual dealer. This would be his first time trying it and admittedly, the anticipation was getting to him. He had lined up three rows on a small mirror. He was staring at them, his reflection staring back at him. Only the 6 lines of coke separated them from each other. The clock was almost midnight. The people on the telly started to count down. “10...9...8…

Colin swallowed his trepidation and bent down. 5… 4... He inhaled. 2… Colin closed his eyes as his mind expanded.

Colin awoke, his eyes wide-opened, pupils narrowed. He could feel himself chipping for breath. He shook his head from side to side, trying to shake an entire year of flashbacks, an entire year of dreaming out of his head. That was all the proof he needed. Stefan wasn’t supposed to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sorry about all the "Maybe" questions, but Colin sure had a lot of them. I take constructive criticism.


	6. Noir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin digs up some information about Stefan's mysterious death. He talks to the grief-stricken next of kin and the last witness to see the deceased alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been lead to know that this is the dullest chapter in the story. It's somewhat important for context, so if you're bored, at least skim through it? >n<

The passing days and weeks consisted of Colin continually calling in sick. 

Colin felt that he was rapidly losing touch with himself. There was no give. He thought that he had investigated every angle of how Stefan could have died so permanently. The mirror had been ether a really good friend, or a window into insanity itself. He had gone back to so many pasts, viewed Stefan so many times. He almost- no, definitely, had become Stefan’s stalker. 

There seemed not to make any difference if Colin saved Stefan’s life and Colin himself survived, or if he had died as a result of it. When Colin got back from the mirror, or his world reset, Stefan was always dead. The cycle of events became depressingly repetitive. 

He started theorize about Stefan’s death in his own world. There had to be a correlation between the cause of death and the reason why it seemed so permanently fixed.

He mentally went back to his original source. Thakur had told him that he had fallen asleep at his therapists office and that they couldn’t determine cause of death. Colin was beginning to wonder if what Thakur had joked about was actually plausible. Had the therapist slipped something into Stefan’s tea? Colin had done it, so who’s to say that people didn’t regularly put drugs in Stefan’s tea? As if it was a universal pattern, just like Stefan’s death was a pattern for Colin’s world right now.

Colin stood up staggeringly. He straightened his back out and checked his calendar. It was Thursday. He decided to go to Stefan’s house and his second source; Peter.  
Peter had called Thakur and told him about Stefan’s demise. He knew Peter, kind of. The only downside was that Peter didn’t know him in this timeline. Peter would probably be more reluctant to talk about such private matters in this version of reality. Hopefully he could use the excuse that Stefan had been his fan to loosen him up.

*

There was a familiar door in front of Colin, one that he had stared at many times before, waiting for the person behind it to open it up and let him in. Peter opened the door and Colin felt disheartened even though he knew that this time, the person opening wouldn’t be Stefan.

“I’m Colin Ritman,” he introduced himself, faking an accommodating smile.

“Really?” Peter’s face was full of surprised folds. Jaw slack, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, I bet I’m not the first person you expected to come around?” Colin said, reaching his hand out to greet the older man. “Can we speak?” he added just as Peter’s had made contact with his.

“Sure, come on in,” he said, and waved towards the living area.

“I just had some questions about your son,” Colin started, cutting right to the chase. 

“Yes, well. I knew he worked with you for a while, on the game… He was a big fan of yours. He always ranted on and on about your games,” Peter said reminiscently. 

“I know he was,” Colin started to spin in some hyperbole into his reason of being there. “And I felt like the best way to honor him would be to make a game inspired by him.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Peter said, seeming to think that a video game would be a strange medium for such a gesture. “Uhm, I’ll try my best to answer whatever questions you may have,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

“I’d like to start where he died. I never got to know how it happened,” Colin said, leaning forward slightly, arching an eyebrow.

“Well,” Peter collected himself by correcting his glasses. “I took him to see his therapist, Dr. Haynes. I waited outside when he was in there with her. Then she suddenly came through the door and called me into her office. She told her receptionist to call the paramedics. When I got into her office Stefan was just sitting there in the chair, slumped over, his chin resting on his chest. Dr. Haynes told me that he closed his eyes and then he was just gone. She had no idea what happened. We didn’t get any answers when the paramedics came either. They couldn’t figure out his cause of death. They were saying that he seemed perfectly healthy.“

“No allergic shocks? Do you know if they tested him for drugs?” Colin scratched his neck, some stubble had started to grow. He’d totally forgotten about shaving.

“No allergies and they tested him for all kinds of drugs. Of course Dr. Haynes herself was under the radar because she was the last person to see him alive. That and that they usually drank tea during their sessions. But she was cleared from any suspicion when the drug report came in.”

“Do you know what he said right before he died? What was he and his doctor talking about?”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask her. I never felt compelled to ask, ” he said as if trying to convince Colin that he was being straight forward.

“Well, thank you anyway,” Colin said, getting up from the sofa. “I’ll let you know how the game turns out,” he lied and promptly left the premises

*

He decided to go to Stefan’s Therapists office the next morning. Meeting her, he could investigate two things at once; he was going to see if she remembered what they had talked about before Stefan died and if that had something to do with why he had died.

There was a small reception and waiting area in the building. Colin decided to talk to the receptionist first. As you do.

“Yes, what can I help you with?” the receptionist asked him, attentively tilting her head to her side.

“I need to speak with Dr. Haynes,” Colin stated flatly, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, before pining her with his gaze, hands in his pockets.

“Mm-hm, and what is it that you wish to discuss?” she asked, picking up a pen, ready to take notes.

“I’m here regarding the death of Stefan Butler,” Colin said flatly. Not letting her break eye-contact.

She swallowed and pushed the call button on her phone. “There is a man here, he wishes to speak to you regarding Stefan Butler,” she said into the com. There was a few seconds delay before Haynes replied.

“Show him in,” the static response came.

The receptionist pointed out the door to Dr. Haynes office for Colin and he marched there decisively. Trying to be as demanding as he could. He knew that the task ahead of him would probably be difficult.

“Who are you? You don’t look like the police. Besides, I’ve already talked to them,” she said, giving him a quick look when he entered the room. She was sitting at her desk, a nail file in hand. Guess he hadn’t interrupted her in the middle of some important work.

“I’m Colin Ritman, I worked with Stefan,” he answered shortly. He figured that it couldn’t hurt to try being honest about who he was. If that didn’t work out, he could just hit the figurative reset button.

“Oh, you’re him,” she said, stopping her filing. Her eyes suddenly growing softer. “You know, he talked a great deal about you,” she said and rose up from her chair, putting down the file on the desk. She motioned for him to join her by the sitting area where she probably talked to her patients. 

Colin hesitantly sat down.

“He did?” he asked, gently prodding, hoping she’d talk all on her own.

“He regarded you very highly,” she said. “It’s a pity you couldn’t make it to his funeral.”

“Yeah, I’ve been very busy,” Colin said and slid a hand across the back of his neck. He didn’t want to think about Stefan in a coffin, or an urn. He was glad that he didn’t have to attend a funeral. He was glad that he didn’t have to write a eulogy. “I never even had a chance to visit him, post-mortem. No-one told me how it all happened. It seemed so sudden,” Colin tried to shrug, he noticed that he’d been avoiding eye contact for a moment and resumed looking into the doctor’s eyes. 

“Yes, well,” she looked down at her lap for a brief moment, there seemed to be genuine grief in her eyes. “It did happen suddenly. We were just talking, like we always do. Then he blinked, only he didn’t open his eyes… He… he just died, then and there.” 

Dr. Haynes looked at the chair Colin was sitting in. He could feel a chill going up his spine.

“What were you talking about right before... it happened?” Colin blurted out, shifting his weight in his seat. He focused his mind on the mission. The topic was right, but was the timing?

“I can’t reveal that information, it’s confidential,” she said and gave him an apologetic look.

“Stefan is dead. He’s no longer a patient of yours,” Colin said, urging her slightly.

“Technically, you’re right…” she said her eyes narrowing, seemingly deliberating whether or not to tell him anything.

“I’d ease my mind if I could know more about his last moments,” Colin pleaded to her emotional side. She seemed to have one even though her reactions were sometimes fabricated. “I don’t need to know his entire history, just the conversation you had at that moment.”

Haynes swallowed and took a deep breath. “We were talking about his mother,” she said introductory. “The anniversary of her death is-... was... a big stressor for Stefan. So I thought we should talk about it. He blamed himself for her death, you see,” she explained.

“Why did he do that?”

“She died when he was a child,” she said shaking her head, smiling softly, eyebrows furrowed. “He and his mother were going to visit his grandparents. They were going on a train and he wanted to bring his favorite toy, but he couldn’t find it. The toy was a rabbit that his mother had made for him and he refused to go without it. And so his mother went without him. His mother missed the first train while he was looking for his toy... The second train crashed and she died…”

“So if he had found the toy they would have caught the first train?” Colin asked, not really sure what do do with all the new information.

“Who knows, there was only a five minute difference between the trains. ” she said.

“How old was Stefan when this happened?”

“Five. He was five years old,” she said with clarity like a bell ringing.

Colin had a horrible sinking feeling in his guts. How could Stefan remember such an exact detail such as the times if he was only five years old?

“So they might have ended up on the train that crashed anyway?” Colin asked, slowly.

“Maybe. But he didn’t, and he blamed himself for her death. I kept trying to tell him that the past is immutable and that no matter how painful it was to think about those moments, he couldn’t go back and change things. I’ve been trying really hard to help him to let go of that guilt, and subsequent anger at his father,” she said, shaking her head quietly.

“Why was he angry at his father?” Colin’s interest piqued.

“Well he said that his father had hidden the rabbit from him,” she shrugged. “And that he hated him for doing that.” 

“Why would his father hide the toy?” Colin inquired.

“He said it was because his father thought it made him look like a sissy,” Dr. Haynes said. “Stefan was always so hard on himself. Always anxious about what other people thought about him.”

“That seems to make sense,” Colin said out loud, before he could think it.

“It does?” she tilted her head to her side.

“When I visited him his father was always nearby, almost keeping tabs on what we were doing and talking about,” Colin started to explain. But as he was talking, he started to regret his words. The expression on Haynes face changed from confusion to rapid realisation. 

“You visited him, is that so?” she said suspiciously.

“Yeah, before he died, obviously” Colin tried to clarify.

“Knowing Stefan, if that had happened he would have sat there, gushing about it. But I don’t remember that ever happening.” Colin could swear she was accusing him. 

“What do you know about his death?” Colin threw the question at her. “I know there is something you’re not telling me!” he took a wild stab at it.

Dr. Haynes leaped out of her chair, picking up something from the shelf behind her. It was two batons. Fucking Hell! Colin thought to himself. He got into a defensive position, he would have to fight her but she had an advantage - she had weapons. Colin looked around in his peripherals for anything he could use to defend himself with. Maybe, if he was lucky he could disarm her and take her weapons?

Suddenly someone burst through the door behind him. It was Stefan’s father. 

What the living hell was going on here? Were they in cahoots? Had they planned Stefan’s murder together? 

Before the fight had a chance to break out, one of them, Colin couldn't tell know who, knocked him over his head and his vision turned black.

*

Colin awoke once again, his eyes wide-opened, pupils narrowed. Somehow Peter and Dr. Haynes worked together? They definitely knew more about Stefan’s death than they were letting on. He was certain that they didn’t have the same abilities as him and Stefan, but he needed to test that theory before he could dismiss it.

Pulling out his trusty mirror, he’d become a stalker once more, a stalker and a daylight burglar. Well, he hadn’t stolen anything yet when he broke in, but there was a pattern of breaking and entering nonetheless. He’d learned both Peter and Dr. Haynes schedules by heart and he knew they were up to something. They had regular meetings at a coffee shop while Stefan was still alive. After Stefan died however, they only met once and then they broke all subsequent contact. Colin knew that if he could just get close enough to hear what they said, he’d have a lead, something to go on. If his suspicion was right, and he was lucky, he’d get all the answers he was looking for. 

He would need to rummage around at home for the smallest tape recorder that he owned and somehow hide it close enough that it would pick up their conversation. But before he tried that, he guessed he would just try sitting close to them with the recorder and write down "manual" notes. 

He wasn’t sure if they knew what he looked like since there was no way of knowing how much Stefan had told them about him. Hopefully, they were only familiar with his name, not his face. 

Colin was at the coffee shop, the day of their last ever meeting there. This would also give him the opportunity to test if they seemed to recognize him from other timelines. They'd either attack him on sight or have a bogus conversation. This time he’d come prepared for a fight. Colin squeezed his pocket, the switchblade lying there comfortably out of sight. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it. Instead he reached for his other pocket and pulled out a pen and a small notepad, ready to jot anything of importance down.

“Glad you could make it,” Haynes greeted Peter as he sat down, coffee cup in front of him. Haynes had tea and a tart of some sort in front of her.

“Well, it’s been a hectic month…” he sighed.

“I completely understand,” Haynes replied. “But the question persists. What are you going to do with the data? Is it still worth something now that the subject is deceased?”

“Don’t call him that…” Peter whispered sternly.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s hard not to get attached, but you got too close,” she said, putting a piece of tart in her mouth. “It stings like a bitch when you get too attached.”

“Yes, well,” Peter cleared his throat. “We can submit our findings. But since project alpha was never fully realized, we should probably omit that from the final report.”

“Agreed,” Haynes took a sip from her cup. “What will you do from now on?”

“I think I’ll finish off the current research, then I will probably retire early.”

“Retire, really?” she lifted one eyebrow and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed.

“I guess Stefan’s death affected me more than I thought it would. I mean, for the longest time… I actually called him my son. I made food for him, took care of him... hugged him when he was upset,” Peter seemed to trail off. 

Colin couldn’t see his face from where he was sitting, but it sounded like he was tearing up. Whatever he had been, he had cared for Stefan. It seemed like he wasn’t Stefan’s real father, though, and that they indeed had been running some sort of test on him. Calling Stefan a subject had pretty much confirmed that. This was more information than he could have hoped for. 

Dr. Haynes and Peter’s conversation, after this, turned in to smalltalk and pleasantries about what Peter would do after he retired. Colin found himself zoning out but refusing to leave until they had left.

Now Colin once again seemed to be presented with a conundrum. Where would he look for the supposed documentation they had on Stefan? If Stefan’s father had been running experiments on him, would there be any traces left over at their home? Would he also find the answers as to why he died there?

*

Colin packed a bag with some tools that he used to break in with, and headed out when he knew Peter would be away. A swift hit with a hammer crushed the window of the familiar looking front door. Reaching in and unlocking had become easier, not like there was a long learning curve. After the first time you cut your armpit on glass, you tend to remember to be more careful.

Colin had searched every room, but found that the only room which was locked, was most likely the room that held the answers to this questions. He decided that just blunt-forcing it was the way to go. He started whacking at the lock with his hammer. He could learn how to pick locks later or attempt to saw his way through the door, but right now he was too impatient. And this worked, sort of. Door and lock thoroughly mangled, he finally got in.

It was a relatively small room, it seemed like a home office for someone who wasn’t claustrophobic. There wasn’t much to the room, there was a desk complete with a typewriter and a chair. Behind the desk on the right side of the wall was a relatively large bureau. It was a large safe with a huge keypad and a small display. The modern display seemed to clash horribly with the typewriter on the opposite side of the room.

Colin looked at the safe, it appeared to require three characters for the password. Colin assumed that they could be either numbers or letters, since the keypad had both. He tried the handle once, just to see if he was lucky. He was not.

So what could the password be? He slumped back, trying to relax himself. Could it be an acronym of whatever company Peter or Dr. Haynes worked for? Where did he work? Who did he work for? He felt like he had just hit a huge blockade. He was absolutely stumped, no guesses he could come up with would make sense for a code. He could attempt to go back to when Stefan was alive, to when his father took him to his therapist to talk about his mother and that rabbit. And then he could confront them all at the same place. Colin buried his face in his palm. He was here because of a stupid toy. 

A toy. T-O-Y. Three letters. 

Colin squinted to himself. It couldn’t be? He turned around and pressed the input panel. He pressed the letters and the lock clicked. It had worked? Colin swallowed. The upper doors were now unlocked and Colin didn’t hesitate to open them. There was a small monitor and a drawer with video-tapes.

*

Colin held his hand over his mouth. There was literal proof here that Peter had drugged Stefan as a child and incepted the memory of his mother dying on the train. The rabbit was there, just like in Stefan’s story, but this time it wasn’t really his room, just an elaborate stage. Had the mother been an actor? Peter was standing on a railing slightly above the stage, he’d moved there after removing a blindfold from 5-year old Stefan's eyes. Peter was now monitoring the scene, just like he had done when Colin had visited Stefan in an earlier life. 

Colin’s brain, his intuition had told him something that his mind could’t interpret back then. This is was it had been trying to tell him all along. 

Stefan was fidgety and nervous all the time because the therapist he was seeing - because of his unresolved trauma about his mother’s death and his anger towards his father - was working together with his father and running tests on him. This was too unreal. Colin shook his head to himself, slowly. 

To think that a rabbit was the discerning reason as to why Stefan had gone on a train or not. The reason he lived or died. 

Colin had changed his mind about time that he had seen Stefan trying to chop up his father. After finding out all of this information Colin thought that Peter had deserved it, he could just go fuck himself for all Colin cared.

Colin tried putting in the acronym from the program and control study. Of course only PAC fitted into the code. Colin once again thought about his Pac-Man theory, maybe he had hit a bull’s eye on that one? He scoffed. But the safe clicked and he was once again granted access to another segment of the beuro. 

This lower section had various documents about the studies. There was a lot of papers with statistics and doses of various drugs, as well as timestamps of certain events. There was one document that caught Colin’s interest. Somewhere along the line, around the “trauma Inception” from the tapes, there was a genuine event. This event was part of the test as well, it seemed from the files but this part was not documented on the tapes though. They seemed to take place here, in their actual home. 

Colin read the hypothesis on the Trauma Inception document. For the plans of trauma inception to work, Stefan had needed to look for a toy, delaying the time that it took for them to get on a train. They had anticipated that he would give up looking for the toy, and then they were supposed to go on a train that was set to de-rail and “kill” the mother, leaving Stefan alive with a memory of his dead mother before him.

Instead Stefan never gave up looking for the toy, and the memory of the mother’s death had to come from the TV-report after the train de-railed.

To make sure that he would have nightmares about this memory they ended up fabricating a nightmare on a stage where the color red was lit all over the room as it was supposed to induce anxiety. 

Colin could feel pearls of sweat beading on his forehead. This was crazy. They would have actually sent a child on a train that was supposed to de-rail. Peter, and Haynes were to some degree, scientists and they conducted experiments on a child. They had programmed him to have fears and anxieties and the proof was right there, in Colin’s hands.

Was this what he needed to do to keep Stefan alive? Did he have to warn Stefan about Program and Control? Warn him about his dad?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to dedicate this chapter to my grandfather. It sounds corny, but I really felt his presence when I was writing this chapter.
> 
> Thanks for the focus and inspiration. Rest in peace grandpa Jack.


	7. Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin has a revelation about past memories

Colin decided to go back in time, to the date of Stefan’s death and visited him before he went to his therapists.

They sat down on the bed in his room. Colin was eager to talk. He felt like he was so close to the answer now.

“Do you ever feel like you’ve done things before?” Colin started. He didn’t know where to begin.

“Uhm. I’m pretty sure I’ve 'done things' before,” Stefan chuckled. Colin sighed.

“Ever seen Repeat Performance?” he asked. Stefan shook his head. Colin took a deep breath. “It’s a movie from ‘47 about a woman who kills her husband and and wishes she could have a do-over. Her wish gets fulfilled but I’d say it became more of a curse. She struggles to make different choices and ultimately the movie ends where it began. Basically repeating the cycle in an infinite loop. That’s why it’s a curse; no matter how hard you try to change things, there are certain things that always seem to happen.“

Stefan was staring at him, wide-eyed. Colin assumed that Stefan was getting where he was going.

“I had the same realization as the woman in the movie, that your choices don’t matter if the universe has already decided who lives and who dies. If I die, I just wake up again. Sometimes I remember exactly what happened, sometimes it just feels like a weird dream. Whatever happens, whatever I do; it doesn’t seem to matter, I just end up doing things over again and even if I try to make everything just right... when I fall asleep, I never know if I’ll wake up having started the cycle all over again. It’s maddening. You of all should know that.”

“In how many of these timelines have you attempted to explain this to me?” Stefan finally said after a long silence. 

“I tried to give you hints a few times… But I’ve never told you this directly before,” He sighed heavily. Wanting to pull out a cigarette, but restraining himself. If Stefan didn’t believe him this time it ultimately wouldn’t matter, he’d just off himself and try again.

“And you think telling me this now, will somehow change something?” Stefan said trying to grasp what Colin was telling him.

“I don’t know. After I just give you hints, I never really get that far. Sometimes you go mad and kill your father, then you kill me and I end up where I started. 

“I kill my dad?” Stefan seemed shocked. “And I... killed you?” he said, frowning.

“Over time, I’ve noticed that you’ve become increasingly more aware, so to speak,” Colin tried to pull Stefan back to his explanation. “You seem to retain more and more knowledge about previous loops. Unlike any other people I’ve met, you always seem to make different choices, say different things,” he said when he was met by Stefan’s blank face.

“Take the people at the office, for example. They always do the same things. I can tell which time someone goes for a bathroom break, I know which joke Thakur is going to make. I know when a phone is going to ring,” he shrugged and let his arms flap to his sides. “I know every single thing, because I’ve lived it too many times to fucking count. But you… You’re an undefined variable, and I think you might hold the key to unlocking us from this nightmare world. A world of always retracing your own steps, working through the insanity of always trying slightly different things, hoping that I can finally change my fate.”

“I don’t know how I could possibly… do that,” Stefan replied helplessly, shaking his head slowly.

Colin shoved a knuckle into his mouth and bit it, hard.

“Me neither,” he said after a while, pushing back his glasses, he then grabbed Stefan by his shoulders. “All I know is that I can’t take another minute of this dreary existence. Imagine only being able to play Pac-Man for the rest of your life, but once you’ve collected all the little white dots the game just keeps on going and the ghosts still chase you. There is nothing left for you do to but you can’t stop playing. Even if you die the game it just keeps going and going…”

Talking about this, explaining his pain, made him swell up. He could hear his voice breaking. It was as if someone had put a hook in his heart and tried to pull it up though his throat. He could feel his eyes getting misty. He tried to take a breath to collect himself but it only seemed to make things worse, it was as if he had forgotten how to breathe. He closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the ceiling, trying to press down the urge to cry. Then he could feel hands on his back and could feel his chest compressing. Stefan had hugged him. 

Colin wasn’t really a "huggy" kind of person, but he let it happen, there was no point in trying to resist it. He knew that most people, confronted with heavy stuff like this, would probably try to comfort the other person. It was just ordinary human behavior. At least he didn’t feel completely alone when Stefan was near. That would have to account for something, it just had to.

“How does one stop a fucking curse?” Colin asked. He didn’t direct the question to Stefan specifically, he just sort of said it to the ceiling, letting the question hang there in the air, hoping that someone, anyone, would have the answer.

“We have to stop Pax,” Stefan said. His voice was uncharacteristically clear and self-assured.

“We what?” Colin said, retracting himself from Stefan’s embrace. Did he really mean Pax, the demon from Bandersnatch?

“He is the th-”

“The thief of destiny, I- I know,” Colin interrupted him. His mind working feverishly. What if there actually was someone out there that had caused this? What if it was, in actuality, a sort of curse that had been cast upon him? Upon them both?

“I’ve seen him,” Stefan said, plainly. His voice choppy and restrained.

“You really have?” Colin said in disbelief. He didn’t know if Stefan was joking or if he really believed that he’d seen Pax. Or maybe he had been diving too deep into the book and he had started having vivid nightmares? Or Maybe he had hallucinated? After all, Stefan had been drugged regularly. It just couldn’t be that Pax somehow existed and had manifested himself in this world to haunt them.

“Yeah, a couple of times,” he said tepidly. “Just glimpses, short flashes. He always appears from the corner of my eye, in a mirror or when I turn myself around. It’s like he’s rushing towards me, ready to attack and then… I wake up.”

“Blimey,” Colin said stroking his chin, pinching his lower lip in between his finger and his thumb. So, it had been a dream? “What did he look like?”

“He looked like a flesh and blood version of what he looks like in the game; with unnatural features, sharp teeth… a wild mane of hair and the most horrifying eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said, nervously twisting his fingers.

“When or where did you see him?” Colin asked analytically.

“There was one instance…” Stefan mumbled, looking almost frightened. “It was… it’s somehow in the future? Or at least it hasn’t happened yet, or it happened already?” 

“Focus,” Colin urged him.

“I was in my dad’s office. There was a safe…” he was talking slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I tried to enter P-A-X as a password. That’s when he showed up, Pax I mean.”

“Then what happened after that?” Colin leaned forward.

“Then I just woke up. I shook the dream from my mind and continued working on Bandersnatch.”

“Did anything else happen?” Did he try another password? He must have.

“No... Well, I shouted at my dad and he took me to see Dr. Haynes. I didn’t want to go, so I went after you instead. You gave me drugs then I jumped over the balcony and woke up in the car in front of Haynes again.”

“Go on,” Colin was curious to see what Stefan’s timeline had looked like.

“I went to her, she upped my dosage. I didn’t take the pills, I guess your speech got to me. I went to Tuckersoft to deliver the game, but I must have been so out of it that I-”

“Skip to the next bit,” Colin said, wanting to keep the focus on the safe.

“What?” Stefan looked a bit confused.

“For fuck’s sake, I’ll skip it for you; you get home, continue on the game, freak out and put another code in safe, right?”

“Yes... H-How did you know that?” Stefan looked alarmed.

“Because I tried the same code,” Colin explained.

“TOY”

“PAC” 

They said in unison. Well, they were finally getting to it, at least. Colin had to warn Stefan about his dad. Maybe Peter was supposed to die and Stefan and Colin were supposed to finish Bandersnatch together? Maybe these were all the elements that had to go just right?

“Did you understand what you found?” Colin was hoping that Stefan had gathered at least something from the evidence. He would have had to since he died at the therapists, thinking about the same memory that was faked on those very tapes.

“I found Rabbit... In the safe.” Stefan said.

“What?” Colin couldn’t remember the actual toy being there, just the tapes with the rabbit in them.

“I decided to go back through the mirror. I knew dad took Rabbit and I was sure he took him to his office, so I went there. I punched in the TOY-code and retrieved Rabbit.”

“And then what happened?” Colin felt a chill coming over his body.

“Dad told me to put him back where he belonged. Under my bed, so that he could fight the monsters for me while I was sleeping...”

“And?” Colin urged him carefully. He could feel goosebumps all over his skin. Was this the same memory he had been talking about when he died?

“And then I woke back up here. I went to Tuckersoft and now, I’m here with you, instead of at my therapists talking abou…” the last word seemed to leak out of him, like a record spinning too slowly. Stefan had closed his eyes and toppled over in the bed.

“Stefan? Stefan!” Colin shouted, grabbing him and holding his head. “Stefan, look at me! Wake up! No... please don’t be dead!”

*

After the paramedics were called to Stefan’s house Colin had went home in silence. Peter had looked distraught, but not as distraught as Colin had felt. He was certain that he had to change that memory. The one Stefan was talking about. That had to be the reason why he had died. Stefan had given himself Rabbit, and the experiment had failed. Stefan had gone with his mother on the train, the train had crashed and instead of just traumatizing him and he’d died. Permanently.

He decided to go through the mirror. He needed to follow Stefan to whichever time he went to. Colin had figured that somewhere along the line Stefan had gone through the mirror to his past and retrieved the rabbit, but Colin couldn’t seem to find a time where Stefan had actually used the mirror. Had he just dreamed it all? 

Was Colin’s new theory wrong or did Stefan travel in time within his dreams? He had said something about waking up somewhere else when he had jumped. Stefan seemed to move in time when he was sleeping, jumping on and off from different times when he died.

Colin ended up looking over the tapes and the files again. There had to be a time or an indication to when the rabbit was first removed from Stefan. It was probably at that point that Stefan would try to retrieve it. The first experiment that took place in their home… There was a few time-stamps on there, but none of them indicated where the rabbit was and when. Colin decided to go back to the night of the experiment to see if he could actually observe Stefan putting the rabbit back under his bed.

*

During that very night Colin indeed saw Stefan open the safe and much like he had said, the rabbit was there. He’d gone back to his room and put the rabbit under his bed. Then he just stood there, looking at himself for the longest time before he vanished out of thin air.

Colin blinked. Perplexed. He could figure out the rules of time-travel later. Right now, he had a mistake to rectify. He picked up the rabbit and regarded it for a moment. This raggedy toy could very well be the solution. He thought that he needed to make sure that the rabbit stayed away from Stefan. Colin went back to the morning of the 9th of July.

Colin placed the rabbit in an old converse shoe box. Stefan should have known better than to travel that far back in time. To before the loop started. Before the 9th of July 1984. Colin put the box under his bed. All he needed to do now was to make sure that Stefan finished the game. That and having a serious chat with his dad.

*

Colin had gone through his regular morning routine, saying bye to Kitty and Pearl and heading off to Tuckersoft. He started doing everything just the way he wanted, making sure that this was the past he wanted etched into the fabric of time itself. Forever. He’d offered to help Stefan with Bandersnatch at a later date. He didn’t want to waste any time, but he needed to make sure that Stefan at least survived the to prove that taking the rabbit had fixed anything. 

It did. Stefan had lived past his death date. Colin felt a strange sensation as he realized that he had saved Stefan’s life. He didn’t know how to celebrate this accomplishment. He didn’t know if he dared to feel anything at all.

He hoped that Stefan remembered just as much about their past lives as he had done before. He hadn’t dared to bring it up too early though, but decide to finally bite the bullet.

They were once again in Stefan’s room sitting on his bed. They had started talking about their experiences and comparing outcomes.

“Do you remember how it all started?” Stefan asked Colin.

“No. I can’t remember. If I did I’d probably try to change whatever that defining moment was, but it’s just gone. It’s flaw of human memory, I suppose. It’s been too long.”

“Exactly how long have you been experiencing this? Collectively?”

“I dunno. Years? It’s hard to keep track when days just keep repeating themselves.” 

“How... uh, how long into the future have you ever gotten?”

“A couple of times I got all the way to new year's. I usually think that I am free at that point, but then I wake up here again, in the middle of nineteen-fucking-eighty-four. All I want to do is to live long enough to see 1985,” Colin felt irritation rise. He tried to shake it off. “What about you? What’s your earliest memory of this?”

Stefan took a long pondering sigh. “The first time I realized that something was going on was when I said no to Thakur’s offer but I wanted to say yes. Before that I only had some strange instincts like flashes telling me all about Nohzdyve moments before you did.”

“I remember that!” Colin said, his memory flowing back to him. “You came into the office, looking all star-struck,” He said excitedly. Stefan blushed. “You had the book with you to the meeting, I remember flicking through it. I was intrigued. I thought to myself that when I got home I should pick up the book from my shelf, dust it off and have a real go at it.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the first changes I noticed,” Stefan continued his story. He grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand, forming a sort of barricade across his chest. “You said that we had met before, which I thought sounded completely insane. If we had met before, I would have remembered that!” he Smiled awkwardly and let his hand fall to his lap. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, when you demoed Nohzdyve to me, I had like a flash of memory. I knew the name and I knew why it had crashed. I tried to ignore the thought. I didn’t want my nerves to get in the way and I rationalized it as my medication not working properly.”

“And when you demoed Bandersnatch to Thakur...” Colin leaned back, knowing the next bit.

“That’s when all of a sudden you knew not to worship Pax, and weirder still, you had gone from not having read Bandersnatch at all to having read the entire thing!”

Colin put his palms together under his chin letting them slide across his mouth and stop at his nose. He shook his head, there was only one thought running through his mind.

“That’s when you passed it over to me. Whatever it is,” Colin blinked and looked at Stefan, expecting him to agree with his theory. But Stefan looked a lost. “That’s why that specific moment has so few differences for us. The moment we met,” Colin tried to explain.

Stefan looked like he was withholding himself. “Why would there be some specific meaning to the moment we met?” he said, nervously biting his lip.

“When we first shook hands,” Colin said, grabbing Stefan’s hand to demonstrate. “That’s when you passed something over to me. You already had it within you,” Colin pointed two fingers into Stefan’s chest with his other hand. “That’s why things don’t seem all too different before that moment. That’s the moment when you somehow transferred something to me and that must also have activated it within us both?”

“I do most often wake up again on the same day we first met…” Stefan said, ponderously. 

“But then…” Colin furrowed his brow. “Why did it send me to re-start at the 12th-”

“12th of September?” Stefan asked. Colin looked at Stefan. Stefan turned his head to meet Colin’s confused gaze. “The day of the deadline,” he said, stiffly, letting the silence fall before he continued; “It was the second time I met you…” he looked down at his feet.

There was a fleeting awkward silence before Colin remembered and chirped in;

“But not the second time you saw me,” Colin said feeling the excitement starting to creep up on him. “You saw me one day, when you were outside your therapist’s office, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I- I did. You remembered that?”

“Somehow...” Colin said, thinking about the door with the flickering memory. “Do you remember what I told you about mirrors?”

“Yeah... I remember you telling me that mirrors let you move through time,” Stefan said, but it sounded like a question. “I thought that was just an odd dream because I woke up in the car after I jumped… and, and...” Stefan stated to trail off.

“That was a mistake,” Colin frowned and shook his head. “I should never have told you that.”

“Why not? If you didn’t tell me all that, I probably wouldn’t believe you right now, would I?”

“It was a mistake because you died!” Colin said, he almost choked. “Not like the other times, when the cause of death was obvious, like when you jumped. In this version you just died in your therapist’s office, after just having talked about your mum. That death was so sudden, and it was so permanent. It seemed like you were dead for real, forever. I found out that you blame yourself for your mother’s death, and that a toy rabbit you had was the key factor in that. She died and you never found your rabbit.”

“Yes.. that- That’s true, but what does this have to do with me dying or mirrors?”

“I’m getting to that,” Colin said and started speaking a bit faster. “You went back in time, found your rabbit and gave it to yourself. That in turn meant that you went with your mother on that train and you both died. But since you still had a connection here...” Colin put his hand over Stefan’s heart. “...your physical body being here in 1984, you ended up dying permanently in the world your body was left in. You must have been out of the loop, that’s probably why you don’t remember it ever happening.”

“So... how am I alive right now? How am I back in the loop?”

“Because I saved you! I finally fucking got it right,” Colin felt hoarse, he felt the impulse to hug Stefan. He’d gone through so much waiting around before he had realized that Stefan was going through the same things as he was. He’d tried so hard to save Stefan’s life and he had been miserable when he had thought that Stefan was supposed to be dead. “I went after you and took the rabbit back after you put it under your bed. I brought it here so that you could never find it again.”

“Wait? You took Rabbit? I’ve blamed myself-” Stefan’s eyes were wide in disbelief, they already looked glossy as tears started to form.

“Calm down!” Colin raised his voice and grabbed Stefan’s shoulder, trying to prevent him from lashing out. “It doesn’t matter if you found the toy or not, your mother was always going to take the train that crashed, with or without you. That guilt you feel, you have to let go of it because you were always powerless to stop it,” Colin pulled Stefan in, and held him tight. He could feel a wet spot on his right shoulder where the tears started to gather. “And besides, I need you here...”

Stefan was convulsing and gripping Colin’s shirt so tightly that the seams around the shoulder was starting to dig into his skin. Stefan sniffled. “Really?” he said, after the convulsions had died down. “You need me?”

“I believe that you and I are one of a kind,” he replied, wiping a tear from Stefan’s cheek. He then cleared his throat loudly, Stefan looked up at him. “You should... maybe blow your nose?”

Colin barely had time to react, it happened so fast that he couldn’t even see the decision appearing across Stefan’s face. Stefan had just looked at him, nothing was special about that look, but the action was monumental. Stefan had put his hand under Colin’s ear and then quickly pressed his lips against Colin’s. At first Colin’s eyes had been wide-open with shock, pupils narrowing. But once he closed his eyes it was as if a tidal wave of memories came crashing towards him. 

He could see all the times that Stefan had done just this; kissed him, and he could see all the times that he’d kissed him back. He could almost feel Stefan’s memories now, his mind finally open, he could see how much Stefan had admired him, almost worshiped him… 

Every minute detail of his behavior was clear as day to him now. Why had he been so blind? It should have been obvious from the start that Stefan had been infatuated. 

Well... he thought, over time the feeling had grown mutual.


	8. Hold Me Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -Is this a joke? Are you high?
> 
> -I’ve never been more sober than this moment

Colin didn’t know how to bring it up with Stefan. He was sure that Stefan had seen the P.A.C.S. documents. Wasn’t he aware that his dad was running experiments on him?

“Did you ever watch the P.A.C.S. tapes?” Colin asked carefully.

“No, not really... “ Stefan answered quietly. “I mean, I’m sure I did at some point but I can’t remember anything. I remember being angry at dad after reading something and then I hit him over his head with an ashtray and then I woke up again.”

“Yeah… Well,” Colin scratched the back of his head. This was a new reality and he didn’t know who’s toes he’d step on if he wasn’t careful but there just wasn’t an easy way out of this one. “You mom’s probably alive,” Colin said not knowing where to start.

“What?” Stefan couldn’t seem to muster up the collective power needed to push any other words out of his mouth.

Let’s just rip off the band aid, Colin thought to himself. “...and she was probably not even your real mother. Just an actor, judging from the tapes,” Colin said, almost through his teeth. He looked over at Stefan. “Didn’t you ever watch them?”

“Is this a joke? Are you high?” Stefan asked.

“I’ve never been more sober than this moment,” Colin grabbed Stefan’s shoulders. “You don’t have to rely on my words alone, there is proof right here... in your father’s safe.”

Colin felt like there was no time to waste. He rushed out of Stefan’s room and down to Peter’s office. The door was of course locked.

“Dad keeps his keys on him at all times…” Stefan came trailing after him. His voice was quiet.

“What are you doing?” It was Peter. He was standing there, looking right at Colin who still had his hand on the door handle.

“We know about P.A.C.S. open up the door and the safe,” Colin challenged him. He reached into his pocket pulling out his now, ever present, switchblade. “There is no point in resisting.”

Peter submitted. He didn’t say anything but he slowly reached for his key, tossing them to Colin who promptly opened the door and ushered Peter in before him.

*

“You weren’t supposed to know…” Peter simply said after Stefan had rifled through the documents, really absorbing them this time, letting the memories come back to him.

“Dad, who are you? Are you even my real dad? And mom, was mom real?” Stefan just asked each question, each time raising his tone and urgency more and more. Peter however remained silent for a very long while before finally uttering something.

“Camilla. She was… Pretty,” Peter said, like it was the only thing he had to say about her.

“Was she my mom? Did she die?”

“No,” Peter simply answered and looked down on his hands. “She was supposed to take you on a train that would derail. I was watching the newscast with you about the crash, per instructions. The planned accident had turned out much more violent than intended and there was a lot of... collateral damage,”

“Collateral damage!?” Colin could hear himself raise his voice. “Stefan would have died if he got on that train!”

“Yes. I realized that, and that thought kept me up at night. I had to continue with the study, but…” Peter looked at Stefan with glossy eyes. “I had started to care for you. I loved you like a real son. I knew that at the moment when I saw the train on the TV…” he took a shuddering breath. “The thought of losing you devastated me. I’ve done everything I could to make up for the horrible things I did... and continued do,” he said, wiping the corner of his eye. “I felt responsibility for you...”

“You don’t hurt someone you feel responsibility for!” Stefan cried.

It was obvious that Peter really cared about Stefan and still wanted to act like a father figure to him. But how would Stefan react? He had killed Peter before, who was to say it wouldn’t happen again? Somehow though, Colin’s previous theories about Peter needing to die were as if gone. He felt a certain paternal empathy to Peter. The first time Colin had reset was not only after Stefan had stabbed him, but he had also killed Peter. Maybe the universe wanted Peter to suffer the consequences of his actions in another way?

“You need to turn yourself in…” Colin said, slowly. There needed to be some sort of justice. “You and that doctor,” Colin nodded at the tapes.

“Patricia?” Peter looked bewildered for a moment. “Dr. Haynes?” he then added, looking at Stefan.

“What does Haynes have to do with this? Is she working with you?” Stefan took a step toward Peter. “Talk to me!”

“We were colleagues, in a manner of speaking...” Peter started slowly. She wasn’t part of the control study at first, but once project alpha was on the table we needed someone with a psychiatric background. She was more than willing to let us film you and took well to instructions of how to conduct the meetings with Stefan,” the last part of his explanation was aimed at Colin. Peter was avoiding looking at Stefan who looked like there was no other fury in the world left because he had taken it all.

“You instructed her on what to say during Stefan’s sessions?” Colin interpreted Peters explanation to the room.

“Well, yes. I had gotten to know her over the years and she became a trusted contact. She never worked directly for the Program and Control Study… it was more like she worked for me.”

“Dad,” Stefan said and the room fell quiet. “Peter. Whatever. Whoever you are…” Stefan looked at Colin while biting his thumbnail. “Colin is right. You have to turn yourself in. Whatever you were- are doing, even if it’s somehow legal…” he shook his head. It’s wrong.” 

“I…” Peter blinked slowly. “I will do whatever you think is right.”

*

Things seemed normal during the next moths that passed. Peter and whatever company that P.A.C.S had come from, hand initially been a big news story but had died down relatively quickly. Colin suspected that someone had payed a lot of money to make sure that the study wouldn’t be mentioned. Peter had somehow dodged a prison sentence, probably because he so willingly came forward with the information, but he had skipped the country nonetheless. Stefan seemed to enjoy life alone and he and Colin regularly visited each other, talking about work, games, music and whatever else was on their minds. 

Even if things were looking up Colin couldn’t shake a thought that he have had. 

One night he woke up in a bewildered state. Stefan was sleeping next to him, just where Kitty used to lay. It didn’t feel like he was replacing her ghost, it was more like Kitty had been a placeholder all along. For one brief minute when Colin woke up, he had thought that the world had started over again, but noticing Stefan sleeping there next to him… with a calm smile across his face… had brought Colin right back to reality.

*

“Well it was the night before new year's eve,” Stefan said when Colin tried to tell him about his nightmare. “So of course you’re nervous. Hey, look at me. I’m sure that everything will be just… Perfect. Like Bandersnatch! 5 stars!” Stefan shot Colin with a finger gun but Colin couldn’t muster the spirit to shoot him back.

Colin didn’t know how to approach Stefan anymore. If this was the final timeline he’d experience… would that mean he couldn’t go back and change things anymore? He’d quite enjoyed being able to say just the right things. Now he was at a loss. Stefan was sitting right in front of him, probably expecting Colin to behave in a certain way. He just didn’t know how to do it anymore, how to do things for the first time.

“What’s bothering you, Colin?” Stefan asked his voice low and dangerously concerned.

“What? Nothing,” Colin tried to lie, but his voice and his body betrayed him. He’d bit his pinky nail, something Stefan used to do when he was nervous. Colin didn’t realize that he had started mirroring his behaviors, but Stefan would probably pick up on it.

“I can tell,” he confirmed Colin’s thought. “Something has been bothering you for a while now. You’ve been distraught, barely lucid, always buried in your own thoughts. This isn’t like you. You’ve been like this ever since-” Stefan cut himself off. He took a deep shivering breath. “...since I kissed you…” he finally said after a long pause.

Colin looked up at him. Stefan’s face had a grim look of utter and complete hopelessness and Colin feared what Stefan was thinking. Colin rushed to fold his arms around him, but Stefan swatted him away.

“I don’t want you to-” Stefan said, covering his eyes with his hands.

Colin reached his arms out in another attempt to embrace him. Stefan thrashed, but he soon gave up. He was still refusing to look at Colin though. Colin held Stefan’s body tightly against his own.

“I care for you, and you know that!” he could feel his own voice breaking. He leaned his head on top of Stefan’s. “When you kissed me, and I mean in this timeline, when you first kissed me, you opened my mind... I must have been blind before you did that because I finally saw what you saw in me, and it frightened me,” he could feel Stefan stir against him when the word frightened was uttered. Colin put his hand under Stefan’s chin, tilting up his face so that their eyes could meet. Stefan was letting his hands fall down to his sides. “It was your admiration that scared me.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Stefan croaked sullenly.

“I fear that...” Colin swallowed. He knew Stefan would probably not take the next part well. “I fear I might be... the thief of your destiny,” there, he’d said it. It was out, no turning back now.

Stefan pushed himself away, holding Colin at arm’s length, looking directly into his eyes, as if he was trying to gauge whether he was lying or not.

“You are not him,” he simply said, announcing each word with clarity. All signs of sorrow were gone from his face. 

“How can you be sure that I’m not? You did worship me in a sort of way, didn’t you?”

“I’m certain because I’ve killed you! You’ve even killed yourself!” Stefan pushed his hands against Colin’s chest. He staggered backwards a few steps but closed the distance again.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as just having me die. Everything else had to be perfect first.”

“No. You’re not supposed to be dead. You’re supposed to be here, with me,” Stefan said, putting a hand on Colin’s arm. “I’m nothing without you. My life was nothing before I met you,” his voice was trembling, weak and small.

“Trust me, I don’t want to lose this. What we have. I don’t want to start over again.” He pushed his head forward so that his and Stefan’s foreheads were leaning against each other. “But you have to believe me, there is no escape. This half a year will go on forever. Come midnight we’ll both be back in July or September again. I can’t let myself think that I’m free. The disappointment might just kill me.”

“But Bander-? But we found each other? And dad is…?” Stefan protested.

“It doesn’t matter,” Colin said shaking his head. “That’s all happened before and it didn’t change anything. It may have only made it harder for us to come to this conclusion. Feelings tend to complicate things, after all. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t remember this before? I wasn’t supposed to remember, because I was supposed to be dead. I should have died permanently, and you needed to live. It was never Bandersnatch alone, it was me too. I needed to be taken care of,” he said realizing it as he said it.

Stefan locked his arms around Colin and let out a horrid wail of devastation. “I hate you!” he screamed into Colin’s shirt while squeezing him as tightly as he could.

“I know,” Colin said, patting Stefan’s head while shushing him quietly. Colin then planted a kiss on the crown of Stefan’s head and tilted his face up with one hand, the other one in his pocket as he clasped his hand around his old switchblade. 

“You have to kill me,” he said, putting the switchblade in Stefan’s hands.

“No… I can’t,” Stefan shook his head. “Why can’t we just see if we get past midnight?”

Colin grabbed his face with both his hands, forcing him to be still. 

“Look at me,” Colin demanded. Stefan obliged reluctantly. The whites of his eyes were cracked with multiple veins going off like tendrils. Colin couldn’t help but to frown. He had never feared death, but he had forgotten that Stefan did. This was the worst moment to feel empathy. Or maybe it was the most appropriate? However disheartened he, himself felt, whatever Stefan was going through was a hundred times worse.

“If I’m not supposed to be dead, the world will just reset, right?” he tried to reassure Stefan.

“But what if you’re supposed to die and midnight passes? What happens then? What about me?” Stefan asked quietly, his voice trembling.

“Then we’ll finally be free,” Colin said. 

“No-” Stefan tried to protest, but Colin kissed him, knowing that this would be the last time he could ever do that. His lips were salty but he didn’t care. Soon he was no longer able to tell who’s tears it were that was clinging to who’s eyelashes. 

They seemed intermingled, intertwined, like they’ve never been apart but never before closer than this moment. 

Colin reached his hand toward Stefan’s wrist and helped him aim at his heart.

“You go and say hello to 1985 for me,” he whispered in Stefan’s ear as he pushed the knife into his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the encouragement and demand for more, really inspires me to get going. So, there's one chapter left, but I do have some one-shots from Stefan's p.o.v. ready to be posted soon-ish. Just holler if you want to see 'em.


	9. Fall Back Into Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin goes on a journey within himself.

Colin was floating in the void. 

There was no other way to better explain it. 

Was he dead? Was it finally over? 

Darkness surrounded him in every direction. The void was boundless and featureless. 

Then everything started shrinking or expanding, Colin couldn’t tell which.

“The closer you look at something, the smaller it becomes,” a voice echoed from within his own head. 

Did he have a head? Where was his body? Was he nothing anymore?

“Don’t for a moment pretend that I wasn’t here. Because I was, and I am. At one point I was everything, and when you are everything the step between something and nothing is inconsequential.”

“Who are you?” Colin asked.

“I am the beginning and the end.”

“What is that, a riddle? That doesn’t make sense! Who are you? Where am I? What am I?” Colin found himself asking the question to nothingness around him.

“You are an entity sprung from this world, born from a womb that encapsulated you until you were ready to emerge.” 

Suddenly there was images rushing past him in the nothingness. Zooming by on either side there were pictures of rolling hills, high mountaintops, deep oceans, large cities, forests, jungles… all of earth in one second.

“So it is with everything you can see before you. Everything is born from everything. For existence to persist this cycle must go on. You see the repeating nature of this pattern as something abhorring, but in truth, the pattern has always been there, gently guiding your life, your existence, along its path. If you ascend you will realize that you become the observable universe. No matter if you choose to be an insignificant part of it, like a creature or a molecule, you will realize that your consciousness is just a collection of these things.”

This entity ranted worse than Colin did but he didn’t interrupt them because what it was saying was intriguing.

“Sometimes, like a cell going through mitosis, we divide ourselves from the greater consciousness because we have to be able to be individuals. We must have the free will to make choices, but this requires that you forget the universe and the greater consciousness. However, the consciousness always persists, it's always there, connected to you, connected to the world around you. I believe you humans call this a soul.” 

“So what happens to my soul now?” Colin asked.

“It is an unfortunate event that has occurred, this ordeal that you’ve been through, and I ask for your forgiveness. I will attempt to right this wrong, for having experienced the multiverse as a human mind must have shattered you. But remember that nothing is truly ever gone, nothing can permanently be erased or forgotten. As long as this world exists, as long as the greater consciousness is alive, all memories, all human endeavors, all of life; will be saved within this void.”

“I just want to be free... from doing things over and over, things that just won’t stay done,” Colin started to explain his plight to the entity. “Can you at least save me from reliving my life in an infinite loop?” 

“The idea of infinity has been known to cause fear, or an existential crisis within humans. Humans tend view the passage of time as linear, maybe it’s because your memories exist in the void of your memory that you call past. In reality time has no bounds, it has no beginning and no end. I’m not saying that the human mind is ultimately flawed, just that your method of viewing the universe is.”

“I know time isn’t linear, I've been through all that!” Colin wanted to shake his head, but not having one, this proved a difficult task.

“Time, The Universe, and the Consciousness has no end. You humans have been given a gift that we, the universe can’t appreciate. You’ve been given an end. The ending is a beautiful thing, it is what makes life so valuable. It’s a pity that it is feared by so many. May you turn that fear into enlightenment, and you will ascend to persist forever and you may restart the cycle wherever you want. You’ve struggled with this, though, haven’t you, Colin?” 

The consciousness or the universe, whatever it called itself said his name like it was the first time they had used a name. It felt unnatural to hear it in this manner. It hadn't addressed Colin directly until now whereas before it had only vaguely replied by trying to explain concepts that he brought up. 

“But I take it that you want to return, Colin?” 

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say!” Colin was frustrated now. He could feel the darkness around him as restrictive blanket. He kept thrashing from side to side. “I don’t fear death, but I don’t want to "ascend" either!" 

“I promised that I would rectify the mistake that was made. I will return you to your preferred husk, but it will take some concentration.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call my body a husk.”

“A vessel, then.” The void echoed. “To clarify, you have to concentrate if you want to return to your “Colin vessel”. This is not a task that I can perform alone.”

“Fine,” Colin said, crossing his arms. 

Wait. 

He had arms? 

Colin looked down, he could hear himself breathing, he could feel blood pumping in his veins. He could hear the workings of his own body and it echoed within his mind. 

In the darkness he could hear a soft whisper coming from the distance. It was a voice calling to him, an angel beckoning him to come into the light. He couldn’t hear what the voice was saying, it was garbled like static from a radio. 

No... It was like someone was sobbing the words. The words gained clarity as Colin tried to concentrate on them.

“Please… Please, don’t be dead. Please, Colin. Please, come back,” The voice whispered quietly. Someone held Colin’s lifeless body in their arms, swaying softly from side to side, crying into his hair.

“I hear you,” he answered, but he couldn’t tell if the words he tried to say had actually been uttered. Colin tried to open his eyes. Even the dim light burned in his eyes. He could barely see a skewed mass of people surrounding him, a dark sky beyond their blurred faces. There was fireworks going off all around them in the distant sky, each flash of light illuminating the silhouettes above him. He couldn’t get his eyes to focus on the people, only the lights flickering above them seemed clear. Then a particularly bright light shone upon the closest face and he could see that it was Stefan who was holding him. Stefan's expression changed to bewilderment when he saw Colin open his eyes. 

“I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed and embraced him tightly, as if he didn't hold on Colin he would somehow disappear again. The people around them started to scatter when they saw that Colin was ok. Someone said “glad you’re ok, mate,” before returning to their partying.

“Is it…?” Colin looked around him. The fireworks, was it new years? “I- Is it... 1985?” he finally asked.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Stefan laughed a confused laugh.

Colin could feel his entire being come alive. Joy, relief, happiness, whatever. All the most pleasurable feelings one could feel, he felt them all at once. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling, from laughing.

“That’s brilliant!” he said and cupped Stefan’s face, kissing him passionately. He didn’t care if people were watching. 

When he pulled away Stefan had a strange look on his face, but the look soon turned into a smile and Stefan then kissed Colin back.

“Do you remember?” Colin asked after they parted the second time.

“I remember everything,” Stefan said, smiled, and kissed him again.

 

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspiration comes in songs.  
> One main inspiration for this fic is this one:  
> https://youtu.be/Cux2qJjApGA  
> (Thank you, sis)


End file.
